History Characters / Dota2UniversalAToM

Dark Willow is a hero who seeks to use powerful area of effect spells to dictate exactly where enemies can and cannot go if they want to remain unmolested in a teamfight. First of all, ''Bramble Maze'' places a rune over a large area that, after a delay, produces 8 clusters of deadly brambles in a fixed pattern. The first enemy to walk into each cluster is rooted and takes damage over time. ''Shadow Realm'' has Dark Willow fade herself into the shadows, becoming completely untargetable. While this is active, her next basic attack has increased range, deals bonus damage based on how long she has remained in the shadows, and instantly ends the effect. Her third skill, ''Cursed Crown'' is a very unique ability that has Dark Willow place a curse on a targeted enemy that initially does nothing at all. However, after four seconds the curse explodes, stunning the target and all enemies around them for a long duration. Unusually, Dark Willow possesses not one, but two ultimate abilities. While they do not share a cooldown, neither can be used while the other skill is active. The first, ''Bedlam'', releases her pet wisp, Jex, to temporarily patrol around Willow and rapidly attack nearby enemies. The other, ''Terrorize'', instead has her lob Jex at an area. After a short delay, Jex releases a wave of fear around them, sending all enemies in the area uncontrollably scurrying back in the direction of their fountain.

Dazzle is a hero who comes to his allies' defense, keeping them alive with powerful healing and enchantments, while simultaneously sowing chaos among enemies. His first spell is ''Poison Touch'': this ability splashes poison on and around a targeted enemy, slowing them and inflicting damage over time. This effect can stack with itself, and whenever a target is attacked while under this effect, the debuff duration is refreshed. His next ability is his signature move, ''Shallow Grave'': for 5 seconds, the targeted ally's health cannot go below 1, making them practically invincible for its duration. This powerful spell can single-handedly change the tide of a fight when used properly, as it can buy a carry hero a few more precious seconds to deal their damage. ''Shadow Wave'' is his third skill, which fires a bouncing bolt of energy through allies, healing them while dealing damage to enemies around them. When used on clumped-up allies surrounding an enemy, the damage can be quite powerful. Dazzle's ultimate, ''Bad Juju'', has two components - it passively increases the armor of allies and reduces the armor of enemies affected by Dazzle's spells, and can be activated to sacrifice some of Dazzle's health to reduce his spell and item cooldowns, increasing in cost each time it is used in succession. This kit allows Dazzle to keep allies going through any adversity while dooming enemies to a messy end.

An unique, two-in-one hero, Sylla fights with his trusty Spirit Bear. The Bear is permanently summoned with ''Summon Spirit Bear'', and function like a second hero with his skills and item inventory, and unlike most other summons, the Spirit Bear scales with Sylla's level and benefits from attribute bonuses. It has ''Entangling Claws'' for a chance to root enemies it attacks, ''Demolish'' to destroy buildings, and ''Return'' for quickly returning to Sylla's side. Sylla and the Bear also possess a ''Spirit Link'' that increases both of their attack speeds, while also causing the Spirit Bear's attacks to heal Sylla for a portion of its damage. If one of them is threatened, they can use ''Savage Roar'' to scare the enemies back to their fountain. Finally, Sylla can shed his current shell for his ''True Form'', a humanoid bear with increased toughness and the Spirit Bear's ''Entangling Claws'' and ''Demolish''. That, or he can just destroy everything himself with his super fast, long-ranged attacks.\\

Mirana is a semi-carry, semi-support hero possessing several utilities that can help her and her allies while still contributing a lot of great damage once she buys the necessary carry items. She has an excellent gap-closer, ''Leap'', which causes her mount to bound in the direction she is facing, allowing her to reposition herself in a more favorable position for further attacking or retreating. This spell has multiple charges, and she gains a brief bonus to her attack and movement speed after landing. If she is close to the enemy, she can unleash the ''Starstorm'', raining down meteors in a huge area around her and an enemy closest to her will get struck with another meteor. Mirana's signature skill is the ''Sacred Arrow'', where she shoots one arrow that slowly travels in a very long line, ignoring any obstacles until it collides with an enemy, whereupon it damages and stuns them based on how far the arrow traveled, with the stun maxing out at a ludicrous 5 seconds. A well-positioned and unhindered Mirana can play the deadly sniper that catches the enemy off-guard and let her allies gang up on the victim, however, she has to aim well and make sure no creeps get in the way of the arrow, or else it's the creep that gets stunned. Lastly, she can set up various ambushes or escapes using ''Moonlight Shadow'', where she grants herself and all allied heroes invisibility for a set amount of time, only revealing themselves when attacking and going invisible again as long as they are idling and the time hasn't expired.\\
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Chen is a support hero that can bend creeps to his cause, and as such plays as an efficient jungler, ganker, and pusher. The crux of his kit is ''Holy Persuasion'', which lets him take control of a target creep and use the jungle creeps' abilities to his benefit. With Aghanim's Shard, this even extends to the powerful Ancient Creeps. Additionally, using this ability on an allied unit will teleport it to your location after a short delay. He can also use ''Penitence'' to slow an enemy and increase the attack speed of those attacking it, making them more vulnerable to his creeps and teammates. ''Divine Favor'' is an aura which increases allies' health regeneration and damage, and also increases the effect of any healing they receive by 25%. The damage bonus is doubled for Chen's creeps and summons. Finally, Chen can rejuvenate and save his allies from literally anywhere on the map with his ultimate ability ''Hand of God'', which instantly heals all allied heroes and all of Chen's controlled units, with unlimited range.
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Rattletrap is the one-two killing machine. As both an initiator and a ganker, he can get close and start beating his foes into scrap metal and escape without a dent. Clockwerk's first ability, ''Battery Assault'', causes bits of shrapnel to periodically pop out of Clockwerk's armor, dealing damage and mini-stunning nearby foes to prevent their escape whether by running or using a Town Portal Scroll. This has the potential to be one of the most damaging spells in the game if all of the hits land, which is made easier by Clockwerk's second spell, ''Power Cogs'': it summons 8 cogs around him, trapping nearby foes and pushing away those that get close to the traps, damaging and draining mana in the process. His third ability, ''Rocket Flare'', fires a global-range rocket that damages enemies in the area-of-effect and gives vision of the struck area. With its infinite range it can help finish off weak and fleeing enemies, scout key areas such as Roshan's pit, or find targets for Clockwerk's ultimate ability, which allows him to enter the fray in seconds: ''Hookshot'' fires a long-range harpoon at any unit, friend or foe, and pulls Clockwerk straight to them, which is useful for retreating to the safety of an ally, or more commonly for getting close to an unsuspecting foe to beat them down with Clockwerk's other spells. Don't let your guard down when playing against the Clockwerk, or this mechanized warrior will find an opportunity to hook onto you when you least expect it.\\
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The Dark Seer is a spellcaster who excels at controlling teamfights. His signature ability is ''Vacuum'': by manipulating gravity, enemies in a circular area are damaged and sucked towards a point. This ability synergizes well with other area-of-effect spells, as they will be able to hit all enemies once they're clumped up. Dark Seer's second spell, ''Ion Shell'', creates a bubble of energy around a unit: enemies who stand near that unit will be continuously zapped and damaged. ''Surge'' increases an ally's movement speed, allows them to walk through units, and makes them immune to slows, which is useful for both chasing and escaping. Dark Seer's ultimate ability is ''Wall of Replica''. This powerful teamfight spell creates a long barrier of energy: any enemy that crosses it will be slowed, and more importantly have an illusory copy of themselves summoned. These illusions deal a large amount of damage, meaning that unlike most other illusions, each of them is a serious threat on its own. Thanks to its long duration, ''Wall of Replica'' is a great spell for controlling space in fights. With these abilities in his arsenal, the Dark Seer can devise a plan to win any fight.\\
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Abaddon is a tanky hero that can be built as a support or core. The ''Mist Coil'' heals ally or damages a target, using Abaddon's own HP. He can protect himself or an ally with his signature ''Aphotic Shield'' that can explode after absorbing damage, creating a great synergy with ''Mist Coil'' as he can use its damage to self explode the shield. The shield also cleanses his allies, [[StatusBuffDispel removing]] almost every single negative status effect in the game. But Abaddon is no slouch himself, as his sword marks its victims with the ''Curse of Avernus'', slowing their movement, and if struck enough times, the curse will silence the target and grant attack speed to its attackers. His ultimate ''Borrowed Time'' inverts all damage taken, turning it into healing and making him a walking tank that will continue to support his allies or wrecking the enemies. This ability will activate on its own should Abaddon's health pool become too low, as long as it's not currently on cooldown. With Aghanim's Scepter, ''Borrowed Time'' also redirect the damage received by his allies into Abaddon, increasing their survivability and turning their pain into healing for himself.\\

In ''Artifact'', Abaddon is a green hero. His Active Ability is ''Borrowed Time'', which fully heals him and grants Damage Immunity for one round. His signature card, ''Aphotic Shield'', grants a unit 2 Armor, 2 Retaliate, and purges enemy effects.\\
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Atropos the Bane Elemental, otherwise known as Bane, is an incredibly powerful disabler generally played as a support, with a repertoire of debilitating spells allowing him to cripple multiple enemy heroes with ease. ''Enfeeble'' inflicts a debuff that both inflicts Pure damage over time and reduces the victim's attack damage and cast range, crippling most opponents. ''Brain Sap'' is a pure damage nuke that drains the enemy's health and gives it to Bane, making him a powerful harasser who can trade blows quite well. ''Nightmare'' puts the target into a fitful slumber, leaving it completely at the mercy of Bane and his allies. However, the target is briefly made invulnerable, and should anyone other than Bane attack the target, it will be woken up and the Nightmare transferred to the attacker. Not only can this spell be cast on both allies and enemies, but Bane can end the ''Nightmare'' at any time, allowing unusual plays through ''Nightmare'' manipulation. Finally, Bane boasts one of the most powerful channeled disables in the game with his ultimate ability ''Fiend's Grip'', which holds the victim helplessly in place while draining mana and inflicting heavy damage for the duration of the channel. This spell can disable enemies even through spell immunity, making Bane a truly fearsome opponent.

Batrider is a fearsome and mobile nuker and initiator, capable of quickly burning down enemies' health and forcing them out of position. He also excels at jungling and lane harassment. He can drench his enemy in ''Sticky Napalm'', which slows their movement speed and turn rate while amplifying the damage they take from Batrider's abilities and attacks. The ability has a very short cooldown and its debuff stacks, making prolonged engagements against Batrider a dangerous affair. ''Flamebreak'' hurls a firebomb that explodes in an area, pushing enemies away and burning their health down over time. With ''Firefly'', Batrider takes to the skies, letting him fly and see over all terrain while leaving behind a fiery trail that damages enemies. Batrider's ultimate ability is ''Flaming Lasso'', which binds an enemy and drags them along in his wake, often to a fiery death. The ability has a very short range, forcing Batrider to get up close and personal with his enemy. Batrider lives on the edge, and in the heat of combat, it certainly shows.\\
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With one of the longest magic-immunity piercing stuns in the game and several summons to help him out, Beastmaster excels at staying alive even against the toughest odds. Though his spells may lack the raw damage potential of other heroes, he makes up for it with their strong versatility and support potential; he can frequently set up advantageous situations for his teammates or save an ally. ''Wild Axes'' has him hurl his two axes at any enemy in a long range and damages everything caught in their looping path, slicing down foes and trees alike. When an enemy is hit by the axes, they not only take damage, but receive a debuff which increases the damage they take from Beastmaster and his controlled units. ''Call of the Wild'', his second spell, has two sub-abilities: the first summons a boar with a ranged slowing attack, and the second sends out a fearsome hawk that circles around Beastmaster and divebombs nearby enemies. ''Inner Beast'' provides a passive attack speed to every friendly unit in its radius, including his summoned units. His ultimate, ''Primal Roar'', deals magical damage and stuns a target for up to four seconds, and grants Beastmaster and his cohorts increased movement speed, allowing them to rush in to finish off their prey.\\

Brewmaster is a very powerful DrunkenMaster, being able to inflict a lot of damage and take little damage in return. Brewmaster is able to stop his foes from escaping or fighting efficiently by using his ability ''Thunder Clap'' which creates a shockwave around him that slows and decreases movement speed on ground units around him. He can further ruin his opponents' coordination with ''Cinder Brew'', which slows enemies in an area and makes them confused, causing them to occasionally hit themselves when attacking. Should a target take a large amount of burst magic damage, the brew ignites, dealing damage over time; this effect can be refreshed by further instances of damage for the duration of ''Cinder Brew''. His third ability is ''Drunken Brawler'' which allows Mangix to switch between stances, giving him the ability to alternate between move speed and evasion, armor and magic resistance, critical chance, or status resistance and slowing his attack targets depending on what the situation requires. These effects are tripled for a short period after using Cinder Brew. Finally, making him even trickier to face, his ultimate ability ''Primal Split'' causes Mangix to temporarily split into 4 Brewlings, each with their own stats and abilities. The Brewlings are: Earth, who is tanky, immune to magic, and can use ''Boulder'' to stun an enemy and have chance to deal damage in a close radius; Fire, who is the quickest and a fighter, burning enemies around him with ''Permanent Immolation''; and Storm, the mage Brewling who can ''Dispel Magic'' which removes positive buffs and deals heavy damage to summoned targets, remove an enemy with ''Cyclone'' and make himself invisible with ''Wind Walk''; and Void, who can use ''Astral Pull'' to force itself and another unit and a specified direction. Aghanim's Scepter unlocks the ability ''Primal Companion'', summoning a permanent Brewling corresponding to his current ''Drunken Brawler'' stance to accompany the Brewmaster. With his attunement to the spirits, Brewmaster is an extremely daunting opponent capable of winning fights that few other heroes can survive.\\

Black Arachnia, the Broodmother is notorious for being one of the best pushers in the game. However, she is also an adept carry and ganker. Her playstyle is defined by her summoned units, the infamous spiderlings. With these, she is able to quickly overwhelm foes and buildings alike, decimating everything in her path in a matter of seconds. Her first skill, ''Insatiable Hunger'' drives Broodmother into a frenzy, temporarily giving her a huge attack bonus and incredible lifesteal. Her second skill, ''Spin Web'' spawns a large-radius web, either near Broodmother's location or connected to any previously placed web, that gives her and her spider spawn extra health regeneration and movement speed, and allows them to pass otherwise impassable terrain. However, only so many webs can exist on the battlefield at one time. Her third skill shoots a ''Silken Bola'' at a target, slowing it, causing it to miss some of its attacks, and causing all attacks against it to deal bonus damage. And finally, her ultimate ''Spawn Spiderlings'' shoots a weaponized ball of her young into a target, dealing damage and causing the affected unit to [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin spawn spiderlings]] if they are killed within the duration of a debuff. The aforementioned spiderlings also have the ability to slow and apply damage over time to enemies, and they can even spawn their very own spiderites, essentially miniature versions of themselves. With the ability's low cooldown and the Spiderlings' ability to spawn more spiders, Broodmother can quickly wash over her foes with an endless swarm of spiders.\\
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Chen is a support hero that can bend creeps to his cause, and as such plays as an efficient jungler, ganker, and pusher. The crux of his kit is ''Holy Persuasion'', which lets him take control of a target creep and use the jungle creeps' abilities to his benefit. With Aghanim's Shard, this even extends to the powerful Ancient Creeps. Additionally, using this ability on an allied unit will teleport it to your location after a short delay. He can also use ''Penitence'' to slow an enemy and increase the attack speed of those attacking it, making them more vulnerable to his creeps and teammates. ''Divine Favor'' is an aura which increases allies' health regeneration and damage, and also increases the effect of any healing they receive by 25%. The damage bonus is doubled for Chen's creeps and summons. Finally, Chen can rejuvenate and save his allies from literally anywhere on the map with his ultimate ability ''Hand of God'', which instantly heals all allied heroes and all of Chen's controlled units, with unlimited range. Armed with the power of enthrallment and the magic of the Fold, Chen is prepared to pass judgment on his enemies.\\

* AntiMagic: After four basic attacks with ''Curse of Avernus'' active, the target is silenced and unable to cast spells for the debuff's duration.

* FourIsDeath: Upon hitting a target four times with attacks, ''Curse of Avernus'' will silence the target for four seconds.

* VampiricDraining: His passive, ''Curse of Avernus'', slows the movement and attack speed of any enemy he attacks, while simultaneously buffing that of any allies who right-click the target after it is silenced.

* JackOfAllStats: Unusually, Bane has completely even stats and stat growth, and is classified as a Universal hero so he gets attack damage bonuses from every Attribute.

* FieldPowerEffect: ''Inner Beast'' increases the attack speed of Beastmaster and any nearby allies, and is possessed by his illusions as well. While the numbers aren't highly impressive, its strength is in the fact that it stacks on top of existing attack speed buffs and applies to creeps and summons as well, so Beastmaster being in the general area of a teamfight can greatly augment the amount of physical damage the whole team does, including the supports.

* BornAsAnAdult: Broodmother's Spiderling offspring can spawn their own Spiderite offspring as soon as they're born.
* ChestBurster: Targets killed by ''Spawn Spiderlings'' will have Spiderlings spawned from them. Furthermore, units killed by Spiderlings will have Spiderites born from them.

* LifeDrain: ''Insatiable Hunger'' gives her temporary lifesteal on her basic attacks, as well as bonus damage.

* TheMinionMaster: Her primary fighting style is to create a horde of Spiderlings and Spiderites to slow and incapacitate enemies before using her ultimate to take down enemy heroes.

* RecursiveAmmo: As an unusual example, her spawned Spiderlings create smaller Spiderites on every kill.

* BarrierWarrior: ''Power Cogs'' forms a barrier of eight energised cogs around Clockwerk, trapping nearby units and shocking enemies if they approach, and provides barriers that block magical damage to allies standing next to him.

* BashBrothers: With Huskar, should they be on the same team. Not only are they brothers in-lore, but Dazzle's skills greatly compliment Huskar's playstyle: ''Shallow Grave'' can keep him alive at 1 HP, which Huskar likes since he gains more attack speed the lower his health is, ''Shadow Wave'' keeps him healed up, and ''Bad Juju'' lets him poke people apart even faster.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Dazzle is one of the friendlier heroes out there, with supportive and defensive spells meant for protecting his team, and he is more than happy to heal his allies should they need it. His spells are also deceptively lethal to his enemies, as ''Bad Juju'' applies stacking armor shred to his enemies as he casts spells, and ''Shadow Wave'' can easily take off a huge chunk of an enemy's health in the right conditions.

* CombinationAttack: ''Bad Juju'' is ridiculously good when partnered with right-click damage dealers. In addition, Dazzle can combo with himself, as both of his offensive spells deal physical damage instead of magical damage.

* DamageIncreasingDebuff: ''Bad Juju'' passively causes enemies affected by Dazzle's spells to lose armor. It also reduces the cooldown of Dazzle's spells, meaning that you don't want to stand next to him for too long.

* HerdHittingAttack: Inverted and played straight with ''Shadow Wave''. Since each allied unit healed can inflict up to 140 Physical damage in an area around themselves when hit with the spell, the damage can be applied multiple times, meaning that if Dazzle and 8 friendly units are standing next to an enemy, that enemy can potentially take up to ''980 Physical damage from a single cast'' (1400 with the appropriate talent and further increased to ''1700'' with Aghanim's Scepter), before even factoring in ''Bad Juju''. And since it's an [=AoE=] spell, this damage can potentially be applied to multiple enemies, every 4 seconds.

* MutualDisadvantage: Against Axe. On one hand, Axe is the only hero in the game that can forcibly ignore Dazzle's ''Shallow Grave'' with his ultimate ''Culling Blade'', and as a SquishyWizard, Dazzle does not enjoy being caught by ''Berserker's Call'' and ''Counter Helix''. On the other hand, Dazzle can crush Axe in the lane, and Axe is very susceptible to ''Shadow Wave'' because of his playstyle, which involves blinking or rushing into a group of enemies and pin them down with ''Berserker's Call'' - the perfect opportunity for a ''Shadow Wave''. ''Bad Juju'' also hurts Axe hard, as it reduces his armor, which really hurts his tankiness. In a game with both Axe and Dazzle, Axe can't aggro out a lane and Dazzle has to juggle more variables in mid-late game team fights. Axe has to jungle or even safe/mid and starts being a bully much later then he would like to. However if Axe safely jungles a Blink Dagger then it's tough for Dazzle, so he doesn't straight up win because his kit becomes slightly diminished in that scenario for nought. A well played Axe can make Dazzle useless and a well played Dazzle can really make Axe cry.

* TheRedMage: Dazzle is both capable of keeping his allies and himself from dying, causing his foes to waste time in a fruitless endeavour, as well as delivering a huge damage output with ''Shadow Wave'' and ''Bad Juju'' when good positioning comes to play. His Aghanim's Scepter upgrade allows ''Shadow Wave'' to bounce onto enemies for increased healing and damage while also firing a basic attack at them, making him even more dangerous while giving his frontline allies even more healing. Add that to him being a Universal hero, meaning he gets a lot of attack damage from attribute bonuses, and a farmed Dazzle is not someone you want as an enemy.
* RunOrDie: ''Bad Juju'''s armor reduction stacks indefinitely; if you can't kill Dazzle quickly in a fight or stop him from casting spells, you ''will'' get ripped to shreds. ''Poison Touch'' can also lead to this as it refreshes every time Dazzle attacks an enemy marked with it; if they can't get away from him with an ability, an item, or juking, they will get chipped to death.

* SuperSpeed: Invoker starts out with low base movement speed, but gains bonus movement speed with active ''Wex'' orbs. With enough levels of ''Wex'' and an active ''Ghost Walk'', Invoker can move quite quite quickly, to say nothing of his recommended item build including various movement speed items like Eul's Scepter and Phase Boots.

* LifeDrain: ''Spirit Link'' is unique among lifesteal abilities in that the Spirit Bear heals Sylla with its attacks rather than itself.

* SuperMode: His ultimate, ''True Form'', temporarily turns him into an anthropomorphic bear and gives him access to the Spirit Bear's ''Demolish'' and ''Entangling Claws'', while empowering both abilities, and increases his health and armor.

* FragileSpeedster: His wolves max out at 320 health, comparable to ranged creeps, and have no armor at all. They're also extremely fast, but still easily wiped off the map with a few autoattacks.
* GlassCannon: His wolves max out at 320 health, comparable to ranged creeps, and have no armor at all. On the other hand, they hit fairly hard and when under the effects of ''Feral Impulse'' and ''Howl'' they will do outrageous damage, but still easily wiped off the map with a few autoattacks.

* {{Invisibility}}: His summoned wolves at level 3.

* CorrallingVacuum: ''Reverse Polarity'' instantly groups all affected enemies in front of Magnus in addition to stunning them for a few seconds, making it extremely easy for Magnus to follow up with a ''Horn Toss'' and ''Skewer'' combo to push them toward his teammates, who in turn would have a much easier job landing their own [=AoE=] abilities on multiple enemies. There's a reason ''Reverse Polarity'' is considered one of the best team fight abilities in the game, in spite of its comparatively low damage and small area of effect.

* MagnetismManipulation: ''Reverse Polarity'' changes properties of matter, sucking all nearby enemies in front of Magnus.

* LifeDrain: ''Sidekick'' grants both Marci and another ally lifesteal as long as they aren't too far from each other.

* NatureHero

* AchillesHeel: Mangix is particularly vulnerable to silences, since most Brewmaster players will often attempt to wait until the last possible second to cast ''Primal Split'' in order to make the most of a teamfight.

Dark Willow is a hero who seeks to use powerful area of effect spells to dictate exactly where enemies can and cannot go if they want to remain unmolested in a teamfight. First of all, ''Bramble Maze'' places a rune over a large area that, after a delay, produces 8 clusters of deadly brambles in a fixed pattern. The first enemy to walk into each cluster is rooted and takes damage over time. ''Shadow Realm'' has Dark Willow fade herself into the shadows, becoming completely untargetable. While this is active, her next basic attack has increased range, deals bonus damage based on how long she has remained in the shadows, and instantly ends the effect. Her third skill, ''Cursed Crown'' is a very unique ability that has Dark Willow place a curse on a targeted enemy that initially does nothing at all. However, after four seconds the curse explodes, stunning the target and all enemies around them for a long duration. Unusually, Dark Willow possesses not one, but two ultimate abilities. While they do not share a cooldown, neither can be used while the other skill is active. The first, ''Bedlam'', releases her pet wisp, Jex, to temporarily patrol around Willow and rapidly attack nearby enemies. The other, ''Terrorize'', instead has her lob Jax at an area. After a short delay, Jex releases a wave of fear around them, sending all enemies in the area uncontrollably scurrying back in the direction of their fountain.

* DifficultButAwesome: Widely considered to have the most complex skill set in the game (though not the hardest character to actually use, as that title goes to Meepo). Not only does casting his spells require good memory of which reagents are required for each spell, the amount that each reagent is leveled drastically affects how powerful each spell is. For instance, ''Deafening Blast'', which requires one of each reagent, can affect the enemy completely differently depending on how much you've leveled each reagent, since each one controls a completely different variable, so it can either do only damage, only stun, or only disarm the enemy, or anything inbetween. This makes it hard to use Invoker effectively if you don't level the proper reagents for maxing out the power of specific spells for specific builds or situations. But once you get it down, Invoker is easily the most flexible caster in the game (with even Rubick coming in second), capable of queuing up whatever spell is required at will, casting it, and quickly Invoking another spell to cast while the others are on cooldown. A good Invoker who has enough mana and Octarine Core can potentially cast one spell every two seconds (barring the cooldown of each individual spell stopping him). That being said, his actual combos aren't very difficult to land, especially when compared to abilities such as Mirana's ''Sacred Arrow''. Most of them just consist of shooting two skills right after each other at the same location, such as his bread-and-butter combos of each build. The difficulty lies in memorizing the combinations for the spells and being able to reliably ''Invoke'' them while under pressure from the enemy, and to maximize his output he also needs to have the right orbs ready at the right time when casting his spells.

* SkillGateCharacter: Abaddon works surprisingly well as a carry in pub games: he can dive towers fairly well with ''Borrowed Time'' and ''Aphotic Shield'' and get easily fed, ''Curse of Avernus'' makes him really hard to run away from, and he's quite tanky as well, especially when everyone has no idea that ''Borrowed Time'' will turn all damage that he takes into healing, causing them to continue to focus him even when ''Borrowed Time'' is active and heal him to full in a second, essentially tripling his effective HP. In high-level games, though, that rarely works well: he is a melee carry with little mobility making him vulnerable to kiting, ''Curse of Avernus'' isn't that good of a steroids (it only gives a flat 40 attack speed bonus, so a Lifestealer with equal farm will out-DPS an Abaddon with ease) and works for everyone on his team, and he needs to spam ''Mist Coil'' and ''Aphotic Shield'' to be effective in a fight but his cast time is slow, leading to consistent interrupts to damage-dealing which is NOT something a carry wants. Because of this, whenever played in professional games, Abaddon is most often played as an offlaner or support, buying utility and aura items, healing and protecting his cores with ''Mist Coil'' and ''Aphotic Shield'', providing them with an additional damage steroids and disrupting the enemy with ''Curse of Avernus'' and discouraging the other team from focusing him with ''Borrowed Time''.

* SkillGateCharacter: Abaddon works surprisingly well as a carry in pub games: he can dive towers fairly well with ''Borrowed Time'' and ''Aphotic Shield'' and get easily fed, ''Curse of Avernus'' makes him really hard to run away from, and he's quite tanky as well, especially when everyone has no idea that ''Borrowed Time'' will turn all damage that he takes into healing, causing them to continue to focus him even when ''Borrowed Time'' is active and heal him to full in a second, essentially tripling his effective HP. In high-level games, though, that rarely works well: he is a melee carry with little mobility making him vulnerable to kiting, ''Curse of Avernus'' isn't that good of a steroids (it only gives a flat 40 attack speed bonus, so a Lifestealer with equal farm will out-DPS an Abaddon with ease) and works for everyone on his team, and he needs to spam ''Mist Coil'' and ''Aphotic Shield'' to be effective in a fight but his cast time is slow, leading to consistent interrupts to damage-dealing which is NOT something a carry wants. Because of this, whenever played in professional games, Abaddon is most often played as an offlaner or semi-support, buying utility and aura items, healing and protecting his cores with ''Mist Coil'' and ''Aphotic Shield'', providing them with an additional damage steroids in ''Curse of Avernus'' and discouraging the other team to focus him with ''Borrowed Time'', although later reworks make him a much more viable carry by letting him proactively cause problems with Manta Style and ''Curse of Avernus'', in tandem with being made a Universal hero, letting him scale deceptively well.

* StoneWall: Abaddon can be a beast to take down thanks to his damage-absorbing shield and automatically-triggered invulnerability that also turns any damage he takes into health. Being able to live through practically any burst even from a blink initiation without the need of an Aeon Disk is something only Abaddon (and Wraith King) can boast. The trade-off is that his damage steroids ''Curse of Avernus'' doesn't scale very well with farm compared to a real carry (although his rework into a Universal hero improved his damage scaling significantly).

* ArmorPiercingAttack: ''Fiend's Grip'' can disable and drain an enemy's mana through spell immunity, although it can't damage them. This makes it one of the more powerful disables in the game, since carries often rely on spell immunity in order to avoid being disabled in a teamfight.

* SomeDexterityRequired: As soon as Brewmaster pops his ultimate, you'll have to control four heroes simultaneously, each one with his own separate skills and abilities that work best chained together. A well-played ''Primal Split'', however can be extremely impressive and deadly.

* CooldownManipulation: ''Bad Juju'' reduces the cooldowns of all of Dazzle's abilities and items when cast.

* PinataEnemy: One of the hardest aspects of playing Broodmother is to avoid feeding your Spiderlings, as a swarm of them can give as much gold as waves of normal creeps to the enemy team. Being up against heroes with Cleave, or some kind of ranged multi-hit ability (Medusa, Luna) makes this even more problematic, sometimes to the point that you don't dare use the Spiderlings any more, reducing your effectiveness.

** The status effect ''Break'' (such as from ''Nethertoxin'' or ''Silver Edge'') prevents ''Borrowed Time'' from auto-activating. This means if Abaddon is chain-controlled while under its effect, he will die without his ultimate activating.

* DifficultButAwesome: ''Black Hole'' is one of the most fearsome teamfight abilities in the game, disabling the entire enemy team for up to 4 seconds while dealing heavy damage. It is also very difficult to land as the enemy will rarely group nicely for you given the choice, and being a channelled ability, requires Enigma to catch all enemy heroes or buy Linken's Sphere to prevent disruption.

* EnemySummoner: ''Demonic Summoning'' summons into three Eidolons, which are capable of self-replicating on successful attacks.

* DropTheHammer: The Immortal weapon Shock of the Anvil is an anvil that Magnus wields as a hammer.

* ImprovisedWeapon: His Immortal weapon Shock of the Anvil is a hammer made out of an anvil.